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Disclaimer:This biography, while mostly based in fact, is a satirical parody biography of a Great American who is loved, feared, and loathed by those who know him and know of him. We hope that the Sheriff takes it as a compliment and as evidence of his Great Power that he has an article on Uncyclopedia, the website for failed comedians and unfunny aspies.

Sheriff Joseph M ."Joe" Arpaio or "America's Toughest Sheriff," as he likes to be known, is the Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, Destroyer of Spics, and lover of the color pink. He was born, as all Great Americans are, at the right place and the right time on Flag Day, June 14, 1932 during the Great Depression in Springfield, Massachusetts, the home of big-motherfucking-hand-cannon manufacturer Smith and Wesson. His parents were Italian immigrants. His Great Power was apparent at his birth, during which he killed his mother. He was raised in poverty by his father, a stereotypical Italian grocer, and his extended family. In 1958, he married his wife, Ava, and had two children, the ultra-masculine Rocko and Shelly, the girl who meant it when she said, "If my dad finds you here when he comes home, he'll kill you!" He has four grandchildren.

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His military record is completely unimpressive. Arpaio in his own words from his own website: "In 1950, America became engulfed in the Korean War; and I had just enlisted in the Army. I wanted a piece of the action. But as luck would have it, instead of heading off to combat, the Army saw an unusual talent in the young Joe Arpaio, something other men my age knew nothing about – typing! So instead of issuing me off to Korea, the Army put me in the military’s Medical Detachment Division where report writing skills and interviewing techniques were critical. The Army never got me over to Korea but it did get me abroad for a while. That’s where I was bitten by wanderlust. Little did I know then that France would be the first of many foreign countries where I would be sent to fight crime. After getting a taste of what being a cop would be like in the military , I was discharged from the army and immediately signed up to be a street cop in one of the toughest cities in America – Washington D.C." So, instead of getting a chance to kill gooks in Korea, he did secretarial work in the land of fine wines and loose women.

Following Arpaio's honorable discharge from the Army, he moved to Washington, D.C. and got his first non-military cop job, patrolling the negro-infested streets of the District. D.C. in the Fifties must have been a heady time for Joe in a city filled with negroes during the age of Segregation. This being an age of few civil rights, with the law on Joe's side, the only crime he could possibly have committed is that of having Too Much Fun. In 1957, Arpaio moved to Las Vegas, where he served as a police officer for just six months before being tapped to become a Special Agent in the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, which later became the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Arpaio worked for the DEA for 25 years, during which time he worked in both Turkey and Mexico, which no doubt fueled his urge to incarcerate brown people. Turkish prisons may even have inspired his own incarceration techniques. He was later promoted to head of the DEA's Arizona branch. In 1992, Arpaio ran for the office of Sheriff of Maricopa County, and won, and was re-elected every four years after that, in 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008.

During his tenure as Maricopa County Sheriff, Arpaio has created some useful, if not so lulzy programs such as the following:

Registration of bicycles to prevent theft, so there should be fewer cries of "Nigga stole my bike!"

Block watch/neighborhood watch, so that nosy neighbors can report people for acting "real suspicious" when they're walking, because normal people drive trucks to get around.

Child identification records and fingerprinting, not so much to find missing children, but to catch these children as juvenile offenders or later in life. If Sheriff Joe had his way, everybody's prints would be on file.

Operation Identification to mark valuable property so that it can be returned to the person that owns it.

Operation Notification so that business owners can get their baseball bats and riot shotguns ready for the illegal alien hordes.

Project Lifeline which provides free mobile phones to domestic abuse victims, so that they may be tracked via GPS by Sheriff's deputies who can stalk them and get extra-friendly to get consensual sex or surprise sex.

S.T.A.R.S. Sheriffs Teaching Abuse Resistance to Students, probably similar to D.A.R.E., Drug Abuse Resistance Education, which has been proven to have no results except to produce T-shirts for college students who want to be ironic.

An annual summer camp for kids near Payson, Arizona.

editJoe Arpaio's Changes to the Administration of the Maricopa County Jail

As Sheriff, Joe Arpaio is responsible for overseeing the operations of the Maricopa County Jail. Arpaio began to serve inmates "surplus food," i.e. garbage and limited meals to twice daily. He brags that it costs about a quarter a day to feed his inmates his famous green baloney and moldy bread. He just can't get enough of the fact that the dogs are better fed than the inmates, and makes this known at every opportunity because he is, at heart, a pathological attention whore. It took a Federal Appeals Court order to compel him to feed his inmates something other than starvation rations, because Sheriff Joe believes that food should be used as punishment.

But it sure does pay for Sheriff Arpaio.

Tent City:

Arpaio set up a "Tent City" as an extension of the Maricopa County Jail which constantly has a neon motel-style Vacancy sign burning. Tent City is located in a yard next to a more permanent structure containing toilets, showers, an area for meals, and a day room. It has become notable particularly because of Phoenix's extreme temperatures. During the summer of 2003, when outside temperatures exceeded 110 degrees Fahrenheit, Arpaio gave this half-assed non sequitur as a reason that inmates shouldn't complain: "It's 120 degrees in Iraq and the soldiers are living in tents, have to wear full body armor, and they didn't commit any crimes, so shut your mouths." In reality, everyone knows that Joe Arpaio is just acting on his natural sadistic impulses.

Volunteer chain gangs:

"Workin' on a chain gang."

In 1995, Arpaio reinstituted the venerable Southern slavery-inspired practice of chain gangs. In 1996, Arpaio expanded the chain gang concept by instituting female volunteer chain gangs so that he wouldn't be troubled by civil rights lawsuits from men, and because Joe hates women too. Female inmates work seven hours a day (7 a.m. to 2 p.m.), six days a week. He has also instituted the world's first all-juvenile volunteer chain gang; volunteers earn high school credit toward a diploma at Steppin Fetchit Memorial High School.

Pink underwear:

Joe shows off his famous pink underwear with the pride of a new father.

One of Arpaio's most visible public relations actions was the introduction of pink underwear, which the Maricopa County Sheriff's website cites as being "world famous." Sheriff Joe has said that he made the change to pink underwear because inmates were stealing underwear from the jail for their own use. In reality, he made the change to pink underwear for purely sadistic reasons. He has an unappealing habit of making up halfway rational reasons for decisions made purely for spite and to gratify his own sadistic drives. It is possible that the issuing of pink underwear may backfire on him for some inmates, who are just glad to get a clean pair of boxer shorts that come in one recognizable color. In most jails, new underwear is rare, and since it is washed along with everything else, towels, orange outfits, and socks, it ends up a dingy pinkish-orange. Also, most jails use tighty-whities rather than boxers, because they are cheaper and more durable. So, thanx fo' the drawa's Joe! Arpaio's success in gaining press coverage with the pink underwear resulted in him extending the use of the color to a disturbing degree. He introduced pink handcuffs and painted the cells pink because pink is a soothing color.

Selective Service Registration and Organ Donation:

In 2001, Arpaio became the first sheriff to require all male inmates 18 years and older to register for the Selective Service System, which used to be called "registering for the draft" when there was involuntary military service in the U.S. Registration is required by federal law for all U.S. males between 18 and 26 years of age, as well as for resident aliens of the same age regardless of their immigration status. Since 2001, a total of 28,000 inmates, including 9,000 aliens, have registered for Selective Service. The Sheriff also started the "Have a Heart" program in which inmates may volunteer to be organ donors, so that they may be used for their meat as well as their labor, although most jail inmates' organs would be unusable due to disease, drug use, or other hard-living. If diseases weren't an issue, Sheriff Arpaio would probably rent out his female inmates as wet-nurses to middle to upper-class women who can't or won't breastfeed.

In 2005, the Arizona State Legislature passed a state law making it a felony, punishable by up to two years in jail, to smuggle illegal aliens across the border. While this is already a Federal crime, Arizona’s law, also known as the "Coyote law," made it legal for local police to enforce immigration law and also classified persons being smuggled as co-conspirators subject to penalties as laid out in the law. Arpaio has instructed his deputies and members of his civilian posse to arrest illegal aliens. Arpaio told the conservative D.C. newspaper The Washington Times, "My message is clear: if you come here and I catch you, you're going straight to jail.... I'm not going to turn these people over to federal authorities so they can have a free ride back to Mexico. I'll give them a free ride to my jail." In October 2009, the Department of Homeland Security removed the authority of Arpaio's 160 federally trained deputies to make immigration arrests in the field. Despite the actions of the Department of Homeland Security, a butthurt Arpaio has maintained that he will still pursue illegal aliens under Arizona state law. All he has to do is charge them with something else like "resisting arrest" or "obstructing" and he can "legally" arrest them and laugh at the Feds.

In October 2009, it was reported that the FBI was investigating Arpaio for using his position to settle political vendettas. If you can't use your political power to hurt those you despise, what's the point of having it?

In January 2010, it was reported that the United States Department of Justice has impaneled a grand jury to investigate allegations of abuse of power by Arpaio.

Under Arpaio, the Maricopa County Jails have lost accreditation multiple times. In September 2008, the National Commission on Correctional Health Care terminated the health care accreditation of all Maricopa County Sheriff's Office jails for failure to maintain compliance with national standards and providing false information about such compliance. In October, 2008, a U.S. District Court Judge ruled that the grossly inadequate conditions at the Maricopa County Jail, overseen by Arpaio, are unconstitutional and jeopardize the health and safety of prisoners.

“A neighbouring asthmatic inmate happily described how he inhaled a cockroach that had crept into his nebuliser. He could feel the insect crawling around inside him and promptly vomited his stomach contents.”

~ Shaun Attwood, British stockbroker

“In jail, chow is served twice each day. Breakfast arrives at 8.30am and consists of six slices of stale white bread (the probability of colourful mould growing on a slice is 33%), raw breakfast meat (the probability of it being bologna is 50%, green bologna is 25%), grapefruits or oranges collected during neighbourhood refuse clean-up campaigns (the probability of them being rotten is 50%), one packet of stale and bright orange-coloured, bordering on luminous, cheese crackers, and a beverage, which is a half-pint of fat-free milk.”

~ Attwood

“Unfortunately, the mail room officer had been offended by my complaint and I received a retaliatory, threatening note taped to my Wall St Journal. The note stated: "You need to contact the Wall St Journal and advise them of your new facility/bunk no. All papers from now on will be thrown away . . . Mail Officer."”

~ Attwood

“Frankie, an alleged Mexican mafia contract killer, is the source of most of the hullabaloo in our pod. Last month Frankie was calmly playing cards in a maximum-security pod when an eight-inch shank was suddenly plunged into the back of his neck. Unfazed, he extracted the shank, and was about to return the gesture, when guards pepper-sprayed him”

~ Attwood

“The daily temperatures are now in excess of 38C (100F) and rising. The air is stale and debilitating. On Monday an inmate told a guard that he felt ill and requested medical treatment. The guard told him to drink plenty of water and to lie down. The inmate persisted, stating that he was a diabetic and really needed to see the doctor, but the guard continued to fob him off. On Monday night the inmate slipped into a diabetic coma and was rushed to the hospital. He has not been seen since.”

~ Attwood

“The daily temperatures are now in excess of 38C (100F) and rising. The air is stale and debilitating. On Monday an inmate told a guard that he felt ill and requested medical treatment. The guard told him to drink plenty of water and to lie down. The inmate persisted, stating that he was a diabetic and really needed to see the doctor, but the guard continued to fob him off. On Monday night the inmate slipped into a diabetic coma and was rushed to the hospital. He has not been seen since.”

~ Attwood

“The allure of being consigned to the grave can become an unremitting thought, as evidenced by the periodic suicides.”

~ Attwood

“The conditions have tipped Eric, a 50-year-old inmate, into a nervous breakdown. Early Monday morning, he started yelling, "Get me outta here!!!" repeatedly for 15 minutes. His voice inflection ranged from a demonically possessed adult male - worse than the Exorcist! - to that of a sobbing young child.”

~ Attwood

“Half of the shower area is refusing to drain. Hair matted with semen has clogged it up. To shower I have to step through the odoriferous scum floating in the water. This disturbs a multitude of tiny jet-black flies and they form a cloud around my person. Fortunately they bolt when the shower is turned on, and migrate to the dried fruit peel in the trashcan. When the shower is turned off they return to the shower. They prefer the semen.”

~ Attwood

The funny thing about all this is that Attwood didn't have to spend two years in pretrial confinement in the Maricopa County Jail. All he had to do was either enter a plea of "guilty" or file a speedy trial motion and get a trial within days. The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to a speedy trial and was designed to prevent extensive, punitive pretrial incarceration, something the British liked to inflict upon American colonists.

editInmates who have been killed or injured by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office

Family members of inmates who have died or been injured in jail custody have filed lawsuits against the sheriff’s office, and Maricopa County has paid more than $43 million in settlement claims during Arpaio's tenure. All of them have been retards, drug addicts, or gimps, which explains why they were treated so inhumanely. Besides, $43 million is only about 20% of Sheriff Joe's annual operating budget, so it's no big deal. Even if Arpaio could have built an air-conditioned jail facility for the money, we all know he wouldn't have done it. For Sheriff Joe, $43 million is just the price of doing business the way he wants to do it, ftw. The following cripples were victims:

A prison restraint chair.

Charles Agster:

In August 2001, Charles Agster, a 33-year-old special needs man, died in the county jail three days after being forced by sheriff's deputies into a restraint chair used for controlling combative arrestees. Agster's parents were taking him to a psychiatric hospital because he was exhibiting paranoia, then called police when he refused to leave a convenience store where they had stopped on the way. Officers took Agster to the Madison Street Jail, placed a spit hood over his face and strapped him to the chair, where he had a seizure and lost consciousness. He was declared brain dead three days later. A medical examiner later concluded that Agster died from complications from methamphetamine intoxication. In a subsequent lawsuit, an attorney for the sheriff's office described the amount of methamphetamine in Agster's system as 17 times the known lethal dose. The lawsuit resulted in a $9 million jury verdict against the county, the sheriff's office, and Correctional Health Services. So now Agster's parents have traded a retarded, drug-addicted basement dweller for lots of money, and the Sheriff's deputies had the fun of killing another worthless inmate. It was obviously a win-win situation. It's also a case study in why not to call the cops to help anyone in an altered mental state. They will fuck it up every time.

Scott Norberg:

Scott Norberg, a former Brigham Young University football wide receiver died while in custody of the Sheriff's office in 1996. Norberg was arrested for assaulting a police officer in Mesa, Arizona, after neighbors in a residential area reported a delirious man walking in their neighborhood. Arpaio's office claimed Norberg was also high on methamphetamine, but a blood toxicology screen performed post-mortem was inconclusive. According to a toxological report, Norberg did have methamphetamine in his urine, though there should have been no direct effect caused by the methamphetamine on Norberg's behavior at the time of the incident. Evidence suggests that detention officers shocked Norberg several times with a stun-gun. According to an investigation by Amnesty International, Norberg was already handcuffed and face down when officers dragged him from his cell and placed him in a restraint chair with a towel covering his face. After Norberg's corpse was discovered, detention officers accused Norberg of attacking them as they were trying to restrain him. The cause of his death, according to the Maricopa County medical examiner, was due to "positional asphyxia." Sheriff Arpaio investigated and subsequently cleared detention officers of any criminal wrongdoing. Norberg’s parents filed a lawsuit against Arpaio and his office, and the lawsuit was settled for $8.25 million. Ka-ching!

Brian Crenshaw:

Brian Crenshaw was a legally blind and retarded inmate who was beaten to death while being held in Maricopa County Jail doing time for shoplifting. The injuries that led to his death were initially blamed on a fall from his bunk but were later found to have been the result of a brutal beating by jail guards on March 7, 2003. A lawsuit filed in the Maricopa County Superior Court by the lawyer for Crenshaw's family stated: An external examination report of the Maricopa County Medical Examiners Office concluded that Brian's death was caused by "complications of blunt force trauma due to a fall." This conclusion was reached largely on the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office's relation of their "history" of Brian's injuries to the Medical Examiner's Office; a history that included the MCSO's implausible story that all of Brian's injuries were caused by a fall from his cell bed. The Maricopa County Medical Examiner conducted no autopsy; nor was the Maricopa County Medical Examiner informed by MCSO or [the Correctional Health Services] about Brian's beating on March 7, 2003 and/or related events. An independent autopsy report later narrowed the cause of Brian's death to peritonitis and sepsis secondary to the duodenal perforation. A fall from Brian's 4-foot, 2 inch bunk could not have simultaneously caused a broken neck, broken toes, and a duodenal perforation. The lawsuit against Arpaio and his office resulted in an award of $2 million. As in the Scott Norberg case, it was alleged that Arpaio's office destroyed evidence in the case. In the Crenshaw case, the attorney who represented the case before a jury alleged digital video evidence was destroyed, which probably showed a bunch of redneckcops beating the shit out of a blind retard and having the time of their lives before they threw him in solitary confinement to die.

Richard Post:

Richard Post was a paraplegic inmate arrested in 1996 for trespassing and possession of marijuana. Post was placed in a restraint chair by guards and his neck was broken in the process. The event, caught on video, shows guards smiling and laughing while Post is being injured. Because of his injuries, Post has lost much of the use of his arms, which virtually makes him a quadriplegic. The dumb bastard settled for only $800,000. That much money won't buy him the drugs he'll need to get through the rest of his pathetic life.

In 1998, Arpaio commissioned a study by Arizona State University criminal justice professor Marie L. Griffin to examine recidivism rates based on conditions of confinement. Comparing recidivism rates under Arpaio to those under his predecessor, the study found that there was no significant difference in recidivism observed between those offenders released in 1989-1990 and those released in 1994-1995. Obviously, for all his bluster and tough-talk and sadistic treatment of prisoners, Joe Arpaio can't keep them from re-offending. He knows this, yet he continues his practices proving that he is a psychopathic sadist who is just doing it for the lulz.